One Night In Umar
by Blue-Inked Frost
Summary: Haer'Dalis and his adventuring companions try to have a peaceful rest in the village in the Umar Hills, but as a result of the Bhaalspawn's greed they face a deadly unseen enemy. One shot.


A/N: Written Yuletide 2015 for ancientwinters.

—

This was no chicken. It was evil manifest. Haer'Dalis had feathers in his hair, dung on his trousers, and blood on his shirt.

"Down, down you filthy beast! Taste the chopping block!" he dramatised. It didn't help the situation at all. Feathers flew around him and he coughed as the bird struggled in his hands. Then the child of Bhaal brought down the axe and all became mercifully silent.

"Gullet, crop, liver, gizzard," said the Child of Bhaal, as she peeled back the layers of dead chicken with a covetous glitter in her eyes. "This one's clear. Next!"

"What next, oh mighty leader? Need your pantaloons pressed?" Jaheira said frostily. She'd used her druid magic to collect a bunch of the runaway birds, which flocked brainlessly at her feet.

"Chickens on the chopping block is enough for now, Jaheira, but if you like you can do a few laundry loads for me later," said the Hero of Baldur's Gate, who surely must have used some sort of incredibly complicated abjuration ward to keep the bloodstains from the chicken massacre off her latest impractical outfit. It shimmered as it clung to her rather eyecatching hips. Her shining axe went down again and the next victim was claimed.

"She's going to do this for a long time, isn't she?" a low voice said next to Haer'Dalis' head. It was very unusual for their newest companion Valygar to open his mouth at all, and his few words became inverse to Haer's interest to listen. Haer briefly considered using the same technique himself, and then decided against it.

"She is more magpie than raven," said Haer. He'd been bewitched, entranced, by the enchantingly beautiful woman who had rescued him from an interplanar prison. He should've taken heed of the temper tantrum she'd then thrown about the Master of Thralls' lack of treasure. He always was a fool for an alluring story combined with a face of similar qualities ... and mayhaps other attributes.

"Do you think her greed is part of her nature, or only choice?" Keldorn mused. He hadn't escaped from the chicken slaughtering either, and although most bards would have guessed the newest bloodstains and dents on the ancient knight's armour came from some terrifying battle, the truth was the chickens. " _He_ was not the Lord of ... stealing things, after all."

Charis Agrippina, daughter of Bhaal, god of murder, spent a childhood mostly deprived of shiny objects in the library fortress of Candlekeep. As soon as she got out of there she sought to remedy that mishap. Rubies and pearls and emeralds were part of Charis' natural dowry, but the rubies were in her hair, the pearls within her mouth, and the emeralds in her eyes. The goal of her life seemed to be to compliment her charms with rare expensive jewellery, although somehow along the way she found herself fighting evil half-brothers, terrifying magicians, unfashionable vampires, shadow creatures of pure darkness trapped in the ruined temple of Amaunator in the Umar Hills, and chickens.

"At last! It is mine!" Charis shrieked, and with bloody hands lifted the jewel to the light.

Gem smugglers, lurking in the Umar Hills, had fed their precious beljuril to a chicken to keep it safe, before they were killed by the darkness that swept over the town. Charis came with her party to find the rumoured Sun Gem in the ancient temple. But tragedy struck, and the so-called sun gem was only a polished rock with a few unimportant magical properties, such as clearing away the shadows from the entire hamlet when properly placed.

They bedded down at the inn, or rather, in the inn's stables, due to some temporary financial difficulties. In other words, Charis was saving up for a matching bracelet. Haer was still sulking after his offer to sing in return for better lodging was rejected.

"My precious ... my very, very dear precious ..." Charis whispered over her cleansed jewel, and tucked it in for the night. She fell asleep with a blissful smile on her face, her scarlet hair spread out on the pillow, thick and rich as rose petals against her soft skin. A bear's growl sounded loud outside, which implied that Jaheira was hunting for her supper.

Keldorn wasn't doing anything, looking rather shrivelled and tired with his armour laid aside for the night. He was a faithful and noble and unambitious hound, Haer'Dalis thought; a noble inquisitor worthy of a tale or two. When, under the city, a blinded beholder had amassed a cult following and many magical gemstones, Charis and her party allied with Keldorn Firecam to defeat it. Since then his wife had left him for another man and, homeless, he followed the group of adventurers with his sword and long experience.

"What do you seek, my hound?" Haer'Dalis asked him, his hands already halfway to parchment and ink. "What draws you along in the chaos attending to her footsteps?"

"She seeks a lost sister. My daughters are that age ... more or less ... Leona was born in forty-nine, or was it fifty? I was in the west at that time fighting unholy wights. Even so, I kept the letter Maria sent to announce her birth. My duty to the church comes before all other responsibilities ..."

"And the Order of the Radiant Heart requires an eye to be kept on the spawn of Bhaal, the Hero of the Sword Coast," Haer surmised.

"Don't name me a spy. I am a knight of the Order and all know it," Keldorn said. "She is vain and greedy, but a mere child—and, I think, innocent of the curse of her birth."

"And, dear loquacious hawk Valygar, what draws you to remain now the curse is removed from your forest retreat?" Haer asked. He had remembered a bottle of wine in his pack—nothing expensive, a rather boring vintage casually borrowed from the barkeeper's stores—and determined to at least sustain himself between and betwixt two dour companions. Valygar shook his head with a puritanical disdain of such things, but Keldorn was too old a campaigner to refuse a little alcohol when it was available.

"Corthala," Keldorn mused. "That family was noble, wasn't it?"

Valygar's generally wooden expression turned suddenly into stone, and Haer's ears pricked up at the scent of a story. "I'm a humble scout, with nowhere in particular to go."

"We must find adventures for you, my friend," Haer declared, overcome with a sudden benevolence, or possibly the strength of the wine. "Perhaps the Plane of Tongue-Twisters, where every word spoken must be in cipher or rhyme, on penalty of death by split infinitives and where wit determines worth. Or perhaps you should share your story; the generational saga of a house once risen to greatness, falling again in the endless cycle that governs all the planes."

Haer frowned. A sound outside got in the way of his lines. There was nothing worse to an actor than some idiotic prompter whispering from the sidelines at the wrong moment.

"You say that you are a mere scout," he said to Valygar, "but within the temple of Amaunator 'twas you to decipher the spell wards laid on the stones and navigate the forward path. Surely a learned and educated man."

Valygar scowled, but it seemed he realised he had to say something at least. "Over the years I faced a lot of vile magics and necromancy. I became used to it," Valygar said.

"Oh, but that is tremendously fascinating! Do tell me more, that I may pen more about this plane into the heroic saga in anapestic hexameter I'm working on ..."

Another intruding sound, from somewhere outside. It sounded much closer this time. And that was when they heard Jaheira's cry.

"Once more unto the breach, my friends!" Haer drew Entropy and Chaos into his hands, the two short swords flying effortlessly to his grip. He was third out of the inn behind the other two men, and they ran toward Jaheira in the woods.

She was wounded but not destroyed by the evil she fought. Blood ran down the side of the druid's face, and she limped as she laid about her with her staff. At first, Haer could see nothing. And then he too became a victim.

His leg was laid open to the bone. His swords swept through the air, but found nothing, and he stumbled down on the ground. The same force swept against his face, and the same evil weapon cut open his cheekbone.

Valygar and Keldorn also slashed their swords against empty air. The enemy was upon them, and they could see nothing.

"Unnatural magic!" Jaheira panted. She flung back her head and howled. Creatures from the woods rushed to her aid: deer, foxes, and mice. Haer used his voice to sing out a spell, and a mage's shield came into being around him.

"Here!" Valygar offered a healing potion. Haer felt things batter his shield—it would not hold—but it lasted long enough for him to stand on his feet. The next time something rushed past him, he was ready to sing with his blade Chaos. Surely his thrust left a mark on his invisible assailant, perhaps an invisible stalker—perhaps an invisible stalker that seemed to concentrate on attacking below knee height—

Keldorn panted and grunted. Something battered him in the chest, and he flung it aside. When even their hardy hound was overpowered in battle, Haer knew there was small chance for the rest of them. Their song would end on a grim note, that of heroes making a last final bold defiance against a grand and deadly foe. With Chaos and Entropy, he prepared for the end.

"Shed some light on this, bard!" Keldorn grunted. The strange force laid into his back, and Keldorn spun around on it. He came to Haer'Dalis' side, shielding him to allow him a chance to cast.

Haer's magic was entwined with his voice. He sung the opening notes of an operatic piece written in an ancient, bygone era where once they worshipped the sun. Light blazed from him, an invocation of daylight that worked even in darkest night. It washed the ground around them in light. Even better, it would shine for some several minutes before fading.

"As needed, bard," said Jaheira. The attacks had paused, and she drew deep breaths as she leant on her staff. "I feared it was some vile spirits who favoured the darkness."

Valygar studied the muddied ground torn up in their battle, as if something about it was terribly interesting. Haer was all in favour of running back inside the inn while they still had time, securely barricading themselves, or maybe stealing horses and fleeing to the next town post haste.

"You will want to see this," Valygar said, and pointed to some small marks on the ground. They moved in and stared. Haer saw only a few tiny lines and whorls in the mud. The ghosts had felt rather diminutive in size, though no less ferocious. Valygar's scowl was firmly set on his features, below a pattern on his cheeks that looked like fingernails or beaks had sliced him half to death.

"I know these tracks. _Chickens_ ," he said.

"Then it is not unnatural, but rather natural necromancy," Jaheira said. "The chickens were unnaturally murdered. By us. As a consequence, their unquiet spirits seek vengeance. They are coming for us, and no, Haer'Dalis, there will be no way for us to hide or flee." The druid grimly leaned on her staff, pronouncing the doom of them all.

A spine-tingling shiver ran up Haer'Dalis' spine. They were trapped in the Umar Hills. His spell would last a bare few moments more, and even though it usually upset the undead, they quickly realised that his magical light did them little damage. They would die, and worst of all, the epic poem about their deaths at the hands of ghosts of murdered chickens would be an epically humourous poem.

"Then we stand and fight, as we would any other foe. At least we know its kind," Keldorn said. "Torm take these beastly birds!"

"Let us at least find cover. To the inn!" Jaheira said. They only made it to the outside of the stables.

Entropy and Chaos whirled in the air in Haer's hands. He strove to sense the ghostly birds who seemed to follow him in every direction, pecking him with a strength they had not known in life and flapping into his face to claw and blind him. And in his ears was a ghostly squawking chorus.

 _murderer thief murderer thief murderer thief_ , they squawked, or something vaguely like that in chicken dialect.

Keldorn drew on his Inquisitor's powers, calling upon Torm's name. A tide of nullifying magic washed over them. But his magic was dedicated to the cause of justice, and it could not stop the ghosts unjustly slaughtered. They stood back to back against the stable they had left the Bhaalspawn in, fighting to save her life after she had stolen the gem.

"A ghost is laid in tales by—holy water, divine prowess, finding out the identity of their murderer ..." Haer gasped. He did not know the count of the ghostly army of chickens attacking him, only that they had soaked the chopping block with the blood of far too many.

"By knowing what they want!" Valygar supplied.

Jaheira reached her nature's magic into the ground. Plants sprouted at her command, wheat plants that sprouted grains for chicken feed. Surely this bounty was everything desirable to a chicken. But the ghosts, it seemed, could no longer eat.

"By returning what was stolen," Keldorn offered. Haer reached into his pockets and flung out a few small low-value stones Charis hadn't demanded. Perhaps that would do, since they were only chickens. An invisible beak closed on a garnet in flight, but then it fell to the ground, as if an invisible gizzard had released it.

And at last the glorious knowledge flashed upon Haer, that he and only he could win this battle and be a hero. "Shield me," he pleaded, and then closed his eyes so that he could concentrate on what he had to do. Perhaps his last breath would be demanded of him, and his doom would come in this final battle.

He fixed the image of Charis' beljuril in his mind's eye, sparkling like a thousand colours floating in a blue ocean in sunlight. When he was sure of every last facet, he sung out the words to his last spell.

The illusory gemstone floated in mid-air before him, gleaming with a ghostly light, all its beauties shining in the darkness. Sudden flaps of wings sent gusts of winds about Haer'Dalis, ruffling his hair as the chickens flew to the property stolen from them.

They were ghost chickens, and a ghost gemstone was what they needed returned to them. Haer heard a hundred beaks pecking at the illusion, and then it vanished along with the ghosts. He wondered if they would ever detect the theatrical lie, but they were only chickens after all.

"I think that I will _not_ note this battle for posterity," Haer muttered.

Keldorn looked suddenly alarmed. "When we reached this building it seemed they were already here," he said. "Charis has said nothing. I pray ..."

Jaheira rushed away, crying something about someone named Gorion. Charis was a Bhaalspawn, and if something had happened to her there would be no resurrection. Haer followed her, alarmed.

The Bhaalspawn rolled over on her mattress, sat up, and brushed her scarlet hair out of her face. She smiled at the sight of her companions.

"I've had a beautiful night's sleep," she sighed. "What happened? You four look all mussed." She bounded out of bed without waiting for a reply. "Can we go to the Windspear Hills next, Jaheira? I heard there's a lost beljuril tiara there. Oh, and some guy called Firkraag posted a notice for some help with bandits." The dancing sunlight of dawn shone on Charis' snow-pale bosom, rising and falling beneath tendrils of her hair. She arose like a legendary enigmatic goddess born of light and colour, the beautiful inscrutable maiden of mystery who drew stories to her as surely as roast chicken summoned hungry people. Although perhaps that was a bad simile to use. Haer'Dalis wouldn't want to dine on chicken for some time.

"For Torm," Keldorn sighed, and Valygar looked on with a wooden face. But it is difficult not to face ghostly chickens without some kind of bond growing between adventurers, and they hauled on packs and fastened straps for the journey ahead.

And Haer'Dalis continued to compose the next verse.

—

A/N: The opening line of this story references Terry Goodkind, the line about Charis' dowry is from Victor Hugo, and 'Once more unto the breach' is from Henry V. I also don't own the Baldur's Gate characters.


End file.
